Los Angeles Lakers: 5 bargain bin targets in 2019 NBA free agency

1. Brook Lopez

The Lakers have parted ways with a couple of players over the last few seasons. Two of those players — D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle — had career seasons for their respective ball clubs in 2018-19.

In the summer of 2018, the Lakers also chose to let Brook Lopez depart via free agency and he eventually signed with the Milwaukee Bucks, a move former Lakers president Magic Johnson would come to regret.

Sure, Lopez posted a career-low 12.5 points per contest. He also averaged just 4.9 rebounds per contest, which was third-lowest mark of his career. But while Lopez’s production dipped in these categories, there were other areas in which he flourished.

He averaged 2.2 blocks per contest. He made a career-high 187 3-pointers. In addition to that, Lopez shot a career-best 36.5 percent from beyond the arc, playing a key role in helping the Bucks finish the regular season with the best record in the league and earn their first conference finals appearance since 2001.

It is being reported that the Lakers have set up a meeting with Russell once the free agency period begins and that he will have an open mind with regards to a possible return to the team that dealt him to the Brooklyn Nets two years ago.

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Bearing that in mind, it would make sense for the Lakers to right another wrong by reaching out to Lopez about a potential return as well.

The question is whether they could carve out enough cap space to make him an offer that would steal his attention from Milwaukee, which is angling to re-sign him and keep the core of an Eastern Conference contender intact.